Your Eyes
by lm648
Summary: Based on the Vampire Diaries. Elena invites a long distance friend, Ashleigh, to live in Mystic Falls after facing a tragedy of her own. Right off Ashleigh learns of Elena, Stefan, and Damon's secrets. She has secrets as well.
1. Chapter 1

"_The greatest enemy of any one of our truths may be the rest of our truths." ~William James_

Elena anxiously smoothed out invisible wrinkles to the comforter on the bed in the guest bedroom of her home. Her brother Jeremy smirked from his room. This was the eighth time that she had gone into the room to make sure everything was in place. She nearly jumped out of her skin as soon as the doorbell ring. Quickly leaving the room she looked in at her brother as a sign to come downstairs and greet the new quest.

"Seriously, I think you need to chill for a bit." Jeremy said as he slowly made his way down the staircase.

Elena rolled her eyes with her back turned to him. She reached for the doorknob and turned it to open the door. On the other side stood a woman dressed in fashionably torn jeans and a black shirt with fishnet sleeves. She was wearing dark sunglasses and had her hair twisted up in a messy bun. "Surprise, surprise! Okay, maybe not surprise since you knew I was coming like a month ago." Her voice was cheerful and had a slight southern twang to it.

"Ashleigh! You don't understand how great it is to hear your voice after so long!" Elena exclaimed. She stepped over the threshold of the front door and wrapped her old friend in a hug.

When Elena was younger she and her best friend Bonnie had traveled to the southwestern part of Virginia to a summer camp in the mountains. There they became friends with Ashleigh. Ashleigh seemed to be a loner at the camp, she was a few years older than them but the three got along pretty well. They kept in touch over time through letters, emails, and texts. Often before the passing of Elena's parents they would travel back there and stay with Ashleigh's family for a vacation. Within the past few months Ashleigh had to deal with the tragedy of losing her parents at the hands of a house fire. She would have rather lost the entire house than her parents along with it. Elena sympathized with her long distance friend and offered her a place to live in Mystic Falls.

"Let's get your things and I will show you to your room. I hope it will be okay for you. I mean I had no idea how you would want to decorate it so I just fixed it up enough so that it was sleep able. If you don't like it you can do whatever you want to it." Elena started helping her friend bring her bags into the house.

Ashleigh nodded to her friend and picked up her last bag. She could tell her friend was nervous and anxious for her to be here but there was no way possible that it was greater than hers. A new town that she had never been to where she only knew three people, it was a bit unnerving to start over fresh. She sighed to herself as the two, along with Jeremy, made their way up the stairs with her things. Entering the room, she smiled. The room was a decent sized room. It was twice as big as her old room. She walked over to the bed and laid one of the bags on top of it. She traced her fingers along the threaded pattern of the comforter and smiled again. This was defiantly nicer than sleeping in a motel room.

"It's okay right?" Elena asked her unsure of what her answer would be.

Ashleigh nodded her head up and down. "El, it's great. You don't understand how grateful I am that you opened you home to me." She turned her head to look around the room. "You and Bonnie, even though y'all lived all the way here, have been my best friends through a lot. It sucks that we lived so far away, but I still felt like we were close."

"Y'all?" Jeremy laughed at the slip of some southern dialect. Ashleigh's face grew hot and she turned back to her bag on the bed.

Elena quickly glared at him and he took the hint to leave the two friends alone. They worked together and began putting away Ashleigh's things. Elena came to a bag with some reflective material sewn around it. "What is this?" She asked.

Ashleigh was sitting in the floor removing shoes from another bag. She looked in her friend's direction and smiled. "Mom and Dad got me that bag when I finished the Paramedic program at college. It's like an advanced first aid bag. It has things for bandaging and it also have IV supplies as well in case I run up on something out in public. Back home it was fine to have all of that but I will have to check up here with the agency before I start carrying it. I won't put it in my vehicle until everything is clear."

She had gone to college to become a Paramedic for the state. She enjoyed helping the sick and injured and chose to make it her career. In a few days she would be starting her new job at Mystic Falls Ambulance. Until then she hoped that Elena would be able to show her around the town and introduce her to some new people. She knew things wouldn't come easy but she could make it one way or another.

"I was thinking maybe wearing a light blue dress but I don't think I've been getting enough sun lately so I don't want it to make me look too pale. What do you think Bonnie?" Caroline asked her friend as they sat at their usual table at the Mystic Grill.

Bonnie wasn't really paying attention to her friend. Her eyes were fixed on the entrance waiting for it to open at any moment. Of course it finally did and two of her friends entered. A smile formed to her mouth and she rushed up to the two girls. "You finally left the sticks?" She grinned toward her friend Ashleigh.

"Did you seriously think I was going to live somewhere with such awful cell phone service that much longer?" Ashleigh laughed and accepted a hug.

Elena and Bonnie led Ashleigh to the table to meet Caroline who meekly accepted her into their little circle. She was sketchy and took some time to get over jealousy when she felt someone would interfere in her friendships. The girls sat together and ordered some food. They all exchanged stories and the three natives to the town informed Ashleigh of all the juicy gossip. Elena felt that Ashleigh was fitting in well. There were some things that she wouldn't be able to tell her friend. She had told her that she had a boyfriend, but she left out the small detail that he was a vampire. She didn't know that Bonnie was a witch and she wasn't going to tell her about how crazy the past few years had been. If everything stayed quiet she wouldn't have to tell her any of the supernatural details.

"Again I'm really happy I had friends who were willing to take me in. I never thought I would lose my parents like this. I always thought it would be years before anything would ever happen." Ashleigh sighed and looked down at her hands.

"You can count on us Ash. If you need anything just let us know. We're here." Bonnie smiled at her and went to put her hand on her arm. Her hand stayed on her arm for a long moment. Elena noticed a look on Bonnie's face. She had a blank stare. She was seeing something. Ashleigh stared back at her friend with a puzzled look.

Bonnie jerked away and noticed that she was being stared at. She stood up and grabbed her jacket from the back of her chair. "Um I just remembered that I have to help my dad with something." She gave them all a smile and left.

Ashleigh looked at Caroline and Elena both and shrugged her shoulders. That was a little awkward. The remaining three girls continued their conversation with each other. Elena was so wrapped up in everything that she did not notice that Stefan had arrived. Ashleigh saw the instant smile in Elena's face. "So this is the man who charmed you?"

Elena nodded as Stefan sat down next to her. "Yes. Stefan this is Ashleigh. Ashleigh this is Stefan. I guess it's about time that you guys met." The two exchanged a friendly hand shake and conversation continued.

"So Stefan, Miss Elena informed me that you had an older brother. Where is he?" Ashleigh asked. Stefan looked over at Elena; he had hoped she didn't mention anything about Damon. He realized that in the middle of the girly gossip that it may have slipped out.

"Yes, I do. He actually won't be around for awhile. He's visiting some relatives in Europe for a week." Stefan lied about his sly brother. Damon wasn't someone that Ashleigh needed to be introduced to first thing.

Caroline stepped in at the mention of her past lover. "There are plenty of hot guys here in this town. Once you get settled we can go to some parties and make selections." Ashleigh smiled at her new blonde friend.

The night began to get late and it was time to head back home after the long day in a new town. The three girls paid for their meal and, along with Stefan, began to leave the Mystic Grill. Ashleigh and Elena walked slowly toward Elena's car. Stefan declined a ride home. He wanted to let the girls have some more time together. They began their travel back to Elena's house. Elena's cell phone began to ring and she looked down. It was Bonnie. She immediately answered wondering what her childhood friend wanted this late at night.

"Hello….What's wrong….What….What do you mean….Bon calm down you're talking in-"Elena's phone flew from her hand. Ashleigh closed her eyes. Everything felt as if the two had started on a rollercoaster ride. She closed her eyes. The car, which seemed as though it was going in slow motion, was flipping over side to side. Elena's stomach began turning. It reminded her of her accident two years. The two were being hit by items from the car as the tumbled around for what seemed like minutes. Finally the car stopped with one final landing on its roof.

"Shit!" Was all Elena could manage to say, the two were still in their seats. Both were holding themselves up with their hands pushing against the roof.

Ashleigh opened her eyes and looked around. She noticed items from her purpose were now scattered above her head. Her seatbelt cutter caught her eye and grabbed it. Normally she would use this to extricate a patient from their seat, not her own. She fell from her seat and winced as she bounced against the metal below her. A burning sensation went through her forearm. Pain, not something she was use to feeling. A piece of metal was sticking out of her arm. She examined herself and noticed that it hadn't completely gone through her arm. Through her training she knew not to pull it out. She looked her friend who was still dangling upside down in her seat.

"Hold on El, I got you." She took the seatbelt cutter to Elena's seatbelt and assisted her down more graceful than what she fell.

The two girls crawled through what was once the windshield. They both quickly removed their hands from the shards of glass that covered the road. Elena stood first and looked around with her hand against her forehead. There was no other vehicle there. She looked back at her car. What was once silver Ford Focus was now a crushed can. Glass and metal covered the road around the two girls. Ashleigh was still sitting on the ground.

"Are you okay?" Elena asked her. She noticed her friend was covered in blood. Her eyes widened noticing it was a large amount of blood.

Ashleigh began to stand up. "I think now would be a good time to call for an ambulance. I won't be any use to us right now." Then everything went to black.

"Miss Gilbert it's obvious that you and your friend were hit on the passenger side by another vehicle. We're still trying to locate the other vehicle involved. No witnesses have come forward with any information but as soon as we find out something we will let you know so that you can inform you insurance company. You two are quiet lucky." The police officer closed his notepad in his hand after writing down some things and left.

Elena sat in a hospital bed holding a bag of ice to the side of her head. Stefan was by her side in no time. She was replaying in her head what had happened. Then she remembered the phone call she had received from Bonnie. She said something about not driving. They shouldn't be in the vehicle. Then they were hit. She began to get up from her bed. Stefan put his hand on her shoulder and gently guided her back down.

"Ashleigh is fine. There's someone sitting with her for when she wakes up. The metal in her arm came out real easy and she's getting fluids for the blood loss." He said giving her a comforting smile. She also noticed it was a smile that meant he was leaving out another detail.

"Who is with her?" She asked turning her head to the side. He sighed and answered her with his brother's name.

Ashleigh had been staring at the IV pole next to her bed side for five minutes. She broke her concentration and rolled her head to look in the other direction. She jumped seeing a man sitting next to her.

"I was wondering if I was going to have to tell a nurse to call for a code." His voice sounded monotone and sarcastic. "I'm Damon by the way. I take it you are Ashleigh, Elena's friend from the south."

She began to open her mouth to say something and was interrupted by him. "You two were involved in a little accident. The car only flipped a few times so everything should be fine. Actually you have a pretty good wound to your right arm there. It should be healed enough by the time you start your new job. I thought you were supposed to be the one saving lives not being saved. In case you are wondering I did some research on you before you arrived. No I'm not a stalker. Just consider it being concerned about who my little brother is hanging out with."

Ashleigh was caught in a trance with his eyes. He was coming off as a smart ass toward her but she hadn't paid much attention to what he was saying. He rolled his eyes and shook his head. He picked up a magazine that was lying on the counter next to him and began reading. "Nice tattoo by the way."

Ashleigh blushed and pulled her shirt down over the tattoo that was peeking above her jeans. What the hell was going on? Thirty minutes had gone by and a nurse came in to assess her vitals again. She was informed that her blood pressure was stable enough for her to leave however she needed to come back in a few weeks to have the staples removed from her arm. Damon was still in the room with her to her surprise. She had assumed that Stefan told him to keep her company while he tended to Elena. As she pushed herself of the bed she felt dizzy almost causing herself to stumble. Damon grabbed her uninjured arm. A jolt of electricity ran through her arm to her head with his touch. She jerked away from him and looked into his eyes. He had obviously had the same experience that she did.

"Oh, God." She said rubbing her arm. There was something about him that would have to be explained to her.

Damon looked at her, "You're-"He was cut off by Stefan and Elena entering the room. The two noticed the other two standing staring at each other with odd expressions on their face. He shook his head and began speaking again, "So I guess I'm giving everyone a ride home now? This is the last time. Next time you guys are splitting the gas fee." His eyes darted back to Ashleigh and she shivered.

Stefan led Elena and Ashleigh both into the house making sure they made it in safe. The two had a long night so he didn't want to over stay his welcome the first night Ashleigh stayed there. The two girls went to their separate rooms and cleaned up the reminders from the accident that they had left on their clothing. Ashleigh could hear Jeremy talking to Elena in the other room. Multiple thoughts were running through her head at once causing her to have a headache. Something was strange about this town. Something strange was going on with Elena. There was something strange being left out. These thoughts, these thoughts were something she had not had since the fire. She knew things were going to happen before they ever happened. She knew the fire was going to happen but she couldn't stop it. These thoughts went away after the fire.

Now they were back. They came back after she touched Damon. She felt something on Damon. She felt years and memories from him. She felt something dark coming from him. She remembered his eyes. They were blue, but they turned dark. She screamed out and fell to the floor. Elena and Jeremy rushed in to her. Elena reached down and touched her shoulder. The electricity shot through Ashleigh again and she jumped away. "Elena! Tell me everything! You are leaving out something important. There's something you want to tell me but you were going to wait until something happened. I want the truth from you. I will give you the truth from me."

Elena closed her eyes and sighed. "Okay."


	2. Chapter 2

"_Patience: A minor form of despair disguised as a virtue." ~Ambrose Bierce_

Vampires, witches, and werewolves? This something that Ashleigh had seriously not expected to be informed of from this town. Elena told her everything. She wasn't sure if it was something that she wanted to hear but it made the headache go away. Elena saw the look of relief on her friends face. "Now it's your turn."

Ashleigh took in a deep breath and began to speak. "Ever since I was little, probably about five is when I noticed it, I started to see things. It wasn't things it was events. I could see things before they would ever happen. If it was something bad I couldn't stop it. If I tried something even worse would happen. That's why at camp I was such a loner. I didn't want to talk to people because once I shook their hand or gave them a hug I would see things. I saw the fire. I knew it was going to happen."

She took another deep breath and continued. "After the fire it all stopped. I had relief for a few months. I touched Damon at the hospital and it all hit me again. Everything came back. I was told that I am physic. I thought I was a witch but I don't have all that stuff like you said Bonnie does. I just see things."

Elena no longer ignored anything that was ever told to her about anything. The supernatural wasn't something that was uncommon in this town. "I promise Ash. You won't be any weirder than what the rest of our group can be. Look we both have had a terrible night I think some sleep would do us both good."

Ashleigh nodded her head in agreement and she looked down at her bandaged arm. "We both are going to feel shitty in the morning." Elena smiled and left Ashleigh's room.

Ashleigh turned down the comforter and sheet set to the bed and hurriedly slipped in. She closed her eyes and lay there. The bed for comfortable but she was not falling asleep anytime soon. She began counting sheep inside her head hoping it would help her drift off.

"One...two...three." Her eyes flew open at the sound of a familiar male voice that had been in her hospital room earlier.

Damon's weight was on the other side of the bed. It was a little weird that he somehow found a way to read her thoughts. She figured that it was some vampire thing.

"Look, vampires aren't like the ones from that Twilight movie bullshit. We don't sparkle and we don't read your thoughts. For some reason I can read yours now. When you tried to electrocute me at the hospital it started there." He had positioned himself his side and had a bent arm propping his head up to look at her.

"Your eyes are this weird chilling green color. Sometimes they are dark. Sometimes they are very light. It all depends on your mood. Your brother's eyes only get dark when he talks about you. Elena's eyes will always stay light. I had a friend….he had eyes like yours. I fell in love with him. Six times to be exact. I'm not going to bore you with those details though."

"Please and thank you." Damon said with a smirk on his face. "He was one of us you know. He compelled you into falling for him. Did he ever bite you? Just for a taste? No, I can tell he didn't. Christopher was picky with his meat."

Ashleigh sat up and looked at him. "You knew Chris?"

Damon shared a couple of stories with her of a friend that they both had shared at one point. She stared at her hands as she listened to old memories. Memories that she was never told about. Memories that she didn't exist in because she was only twenty-three. Memories that were centuries before her time.

"I loved him Damon." She said this thinking of this Chris that turned out to be someone different than she had believed.

He rolled her eyes and sat up in the bed with her. "No you didn't. He told you that you loved him that's why you _think_ that you loved him."

She took a little offense to that statement. "Why are you even talking to me? We've only known each other for a day and you are making me give in to telling you very personal information."

"Correction, you gave it up freely. It was boring anyway considering I already knew about everything. Here's the thing, I said I knew Chris. I knew him very well. I know you very well too, but you will never remember me."

Ashleigh quickly turned her head to face him. Her face grew pale and thoughts raced through her head. Damon was not a familiar face. How could she not know him? She stopped thinking when she realized that he could still read her thoughts.

"I made you forget all those memories a long time ago. Actually, more like a few months ago." His face began to grow more relaxed.

"Why?"

Damon knew that the explanations Ashleigh would find out in the future would not be easy for her. He wasn't sure if it would be safe for her to find out the truth about anything that she had no memory or the memories that he was told to put in her head. "I had to protect you. Some things that you remember are what Chris told me to tell you. Some of them are what I came up with."

Ashleigh shook her head and fell back on the bed. Her head began to ache again and she closed her eyes. It seemed as though Damon was leaving out details. Soon he was going to learn that she had no patience when she didn't have answers. That is_ if_ he didn't already know this.

Damon awoke to the feeling of long strands of hair on his face. He opened his eyes and realized that he had fallen asleep in Ashleigh's bed. Glancing over at a digital clock on the nightstand he realized he only dozed off for an hour. It was five in the morning and the sun would be up within another hour. He slid off the bed with ease and stood up. Ashleigh looked like she was lying in an awkward position. He noticed that she was barely on the bed. It could have been her subconscious fear of lying in the same bed as a vampire. He gently grabbed her and pulled her to the center of the bed. She would have more questions needing answers when she woke up. Deep inside he knew that he should have erased every memory she had of the few things he told her but he wanted her to know the truth.

He ventured back to his own home where he was met by his brother Stefan. "Isn't it a school night for you little brother?" He asked with a smirk on his face.

Stefan gave a silent laugh and said, "I figured you were up to no good as usual Damon."

Damon rolled his eyes because he knew would the conversation would end up leading to. "Before you accuse me of any wrong doings; I did nothing at all. Our new friend and I just had an all night one on one."

Stefan crossed his arms over his chest and nodded. "I know. I was waiting outside in case you decided to pull one of your old tricks."

"Glad to know you still have faith in me brother."

"I remembered something interesting during your talk with Ashleigh. She has blood ties to the Founding Families. We knew her ancestors then, Edward and Annabelle Primm."

Damon thought for a moment and nodded his head. "Yes, I recall them being there. Edward was the local doctor. I remember him treating you when you caught the flu that one time."

"Because of Ashleigh's ties to Mystic Falls you know now that she will be a target each time someone or a group goes after the Founding Families. As far as I know she's the only existing person with ties to the Primm's. She has just started getting settled but I know that the Primm's home is still up. A few years ago a family started renovating it but they passed on before it was finished. I think it would be best if Ashleigh didn't live with Elena. At least at the other place it would be safe for both of them to go especially against any uninvited guests."

Stefan's idea seemed like a good one. Damon would talk to Mayor Lockwood and see if she knew if the property was available. He walked passed his brother with an unspoken agreement that he understood the plan and ventured off to his room to be alone.

At ten o'clock in the morning Ashleigh had her head resting on her arms at the counter in the kitchen of the Gilbert house. Her body was sore in places that she didn't realize could be sore. The stitched up laceration to her arm felt numb. She would be glad to have those out so she could start at her new job which was postponed for another week while her arm healed. She was alone in the house. Elena had refused to miss school, against Stefan's wishes of course. Ashleigh remembered her senior year. She wasn't quite set on going to school as much as Elena was. Of course she didn't have friends like Elena did either.

"You look rough."

She slowly lifted her head and focused her eyes on Damon. "You are seriously not someone I would want to see right now."

He smirked and sat down on a stool next to her. "Good morning to you too. Is that how you great people in the south?"

"Bite me. Well not really, that was not an invitation." She said forgetting that she was talking to a vampire.

"Relax, Elena wants me to baby sit you today. Tend to your needs. Rub your feet. Yeah the last two were a lie. I'm just babysitting.

Ashleigh rolled her eyes and put her head back down. She was tired and without trying began to fall back asleep. She began to taste a copper bitter taste in her mouth. She opened her eyes and realized Damon had her with her mouth on his wrist. He was holding her hair keeping her from moving and she was drinking her blood. She struggled for a moment and managed to push him away causing her to fall backwards.

"What the hell are you doing?" She had screamed at him. She was coughing. The taste was foul and unpleasant.

"Just calm down. How are you feeling right now?" He asked her.

She was outraged. She tried to think of something nasty to say to him. Words were not forming in her head at the moment. She then noticed that she felt…normal.

"You can thank me later. Go change your clothes. You need to look presentable when you talk to the Mayor today."

She rolled her eyes and picked herself up off the kitchen floor. Although she wasn't sure why she listened to what he told her and went upstairs to change.

"Why are we going to see the Mayor?" She asked when she returned downstairs.

"She wants to meet another council member."

Ashleigh had a confused look on her face. Damon directed her outside to his car and proceeded to explain. The two traveled to the Lockwood mansion and had lunch with Mayor Lockwood. She was shocked to learn that her parents lived in Mystic Falls. They never discussed anything about the past with her. She was even more shocked to learn that she was possibly inheriting her own house. After the hospitality from the mayor the pair was back in Damon's car. Ashleigh was silent as he kept talking about what was about to be a sudden big step for her.

"We may have a way to help you out if you're worried about the money part of this. It shouldn't take long to finish the old place up." He said.

"I'm not worried about any money. I have the money to put anywhere I want, but I can't do this. Not right now." She said, the car pulled over to the shoulder of the road and stopped.

"You would be stupid not to do this! If the wrong person finds out that you're in this town and you're not protected by anything you are done! This is your best option if you're going to live here Ashleigh!" Damon was getting angry at Ashleigh's hesitation.

"You think that you know everything about me don't you? You don't know a damn thing about me Damon. When I got here and touched you in the hospital. Everything came back! I remember everything now. I remember things that you don't even know about. For two years I have been dealing with this vampire, werewolf, and supernatural crap! I can take care of myself. Another thing that you need to learn for yourself is that you and everyone else with have to be patient. I hesitate at making decisions because I am afraid of being hurt. Chris made you take that away from me but now that is back. I am me again. Until you can deal with that, leave me alone. And I can take myself home from here." Ashleigh opened the car door and pulled herself out of the passenger seat.


End file.
